Dakar.

Dakar is magical. It's not Senegal, I swear it's secretly America. Speaking of America; I'm at a club right now called Club Atlantique or as the volunteers call it Club America. There's internet, food, beer, books, tv, dvds, tennis courts, volley ball court, ping pong, SWIMMING POOL!, life guards, jungle gym, duty free....best of all it's free to get in if you're a pc volunteer!! Other people have to pay fees, but for some reason volunteers are exempt from the fees :).

I'm in Dakar for English camp. I'm working with 4 other volunteers to teach English to 14-16 year old students, for 6 days. We're working in Mbao which is just on the outskirts of Dakar, the camp is suppose to be for "underprivileged" kids, but my definition of underprivileged and the US Embassy's is very different, either way these kids deserve these classes. There are more English camp groups with other volunteers and different locations, so there are lots of volunteers staying at Dakar so everyday after class is an adventure!

Yesterday was our first day of class and it was kind of difficult to get them to loosen up, they were incredibly timid; didn't know who we were or what to expect from all of this. Today they were really energetic more daring to engage in conversation; I didn't hear as much French or Wolof and they would tell us "I don't understand" AMAZING! When we played pictionary we tried to explain to the students they don't need to raise their hand....but they wouldn't disobey that rule, they kept raising their hands; it's strange to think how ingrained their learning style is and how hard it is for them to break that familiarity. Their learning styles here are based on the old French influences, repetition, and memorization.

The kids are sooo great though, we played basketball for a little while today and there was the boy Michael (we gave them all English names because we all have Senegalese names) and he kept passing the basketball to girls on his team!!! It was amazing! The other guys on the other team refused to pass to the girls so a lot of them quit that team and sat down because they were frustrated, and we kept yelling at those guys but they wouldn't listen. It's frustrating when that stuff happens, also I think the 2 guys who wouldn't share the ball are about 18 years old; students here lie about their age a lot so they can stay in school and take the BAC- if they pass the BAC exam they can go to University. So good for them for staying in school and sticking through it; but share the ball, thank you. :)

I'll be returning to my village Sunday or Monday inchallah. I'm excited, but kind of nervous, I feel like I've lost some of my language skills, and I've been so out of village life, but I'm excited to return and get back to my grassroots life style. So August 17th is Ramadan, so I will not be starting any projects until after that; and even then my projects will be a slow process because my language skills wouldn't be up to par to explain all that needed to be explained. But during Ramadan nobody eats or drinks anything during the day (except old ppl, children, and pregnant women) they only eat before sunrise and after sunset, because of this reason no one can work so the month of August is going to be a very lazy month for me which will be nice I can concentrate on my language and organize myself. I want to try to fast for a few days, just to really get a feeling of what the villagers go through- if I get sick I'll quit doing it. And there's no way I can quit drinking water in this heat so I'll continue drinking water all day and just break fast with my family late at night or early in the morning.

That's all for now. There will be an ice cream adventure tonight, because there is real ice cream in Dakar. :)